Updated 7th May 2019
And with Raniere’s trial starting today:
Alleged NXIVM sex cult leader Keith Raniere just wanted to create a ‘secret society of women,’ his attorney says (buzzfeednews.com).
Although allegedly a sisterhood “secret society of women” with unforbidden forest of bush who’d tell him he’s Gandhi as he’s about to blow his self help load.
In their opening arguments, attorneys on both sides painted a widely different picture of Raniere, who has been charged with sex trafficking, sex trafficking conspiracy, racketeering, and conspiracy to commit forced labor.
With Raniere’s attorney called his client a “good man” with “good intentions,” who simply taught women how to be vulnerable and presumably know their current place.
The prosecutor focused much of her opening argument on DOS—a subgroup of NXIVM—which purported to be a women’s empowerment group. Instead, Hajjar said, Raniere recruited the women to the group to serve as his slaves, where he controlled many aspects of their lives, including their schedules, diets, and whom they spoke to.
And as expected with more juicy details being told:
The DOS slaves also had to have sex with Raniere, Hajjar said, including Nicole, an actor in her thirties.
Raniere allegedly blindfolded and tied Nicole to the table while another person Nicole did not know came in to the room and performed oral sex on her.
The other person turned out to be Camilla, the young girl from Mexico, Hajjar said.
And with seemingly five women of the inner circle of the “pyramid scheme” sex cult lined up to testify against him (cnn.com) with perhaps Smallville star Mack being one (foxnews.com).
Updated 8th May 2019
A former member of alleged cult NXIVM testified in horrifying detail about becoming a sex slave (buzzfeednews.com).
“Sylvie”, a runner in training having been introduced to NXIVM through Seagram heiress Clare Bronfman with Raniere offering to coach her and invited to join the sub group join DOS by Monica Duran to help her lead a “more fulfilled life and become a stronger person”, but with the condition that she hand over “collateral” in order to learn more about it:
She testified that Duran suggested Sylvie write a letter addressed to her parents saying she was a prostitute, as well as hand over naked photos of herself.Once Sylive provided the sensitive material she said Duran told her she was now her slave.
And was then given “assignments” she needed to complete by her new master, one of which was “to seduce Keith” resulting in her having to send Keith nude snaps after he told her “You’re going to have to do better than that” in response to her “You look hot in your glasses” text message attempted flirtation.
Sylvie continued to send naked photos of herself for a few months, she said, until one day her father called her and suggested she get her own cloud-based storage account, telling her, “I found your medical pictures.”
Resulting in her asking if she could stop sending nudies only to be told “the next thing would be in person” which then led to Raniere performing oral sex on her on dirty sheets at his house and making a “life commitment” to her master Duran with a dog collar being placed around her neck at a ceremony and tasked with recruiting new slaves.
Updated 14th May 2019
Nxivm trial: alleged sex cult leader tried to ‘break’ female followers, says witness (theguardian.com).
Several female members of an alleged New York sex cult, including the actor Allison Mack, became dangerously thin after following near-starvation diets at the direction of the group’s leader, a 12-year veteran of the group testified in court on Monday.
“12-year veteran” being film-maker Mark Vicente, a key prosecution witness and the the group’s unofficial videographer, who said that he told Raniere that Mack seemed “broken” to which Raniere replied “I’m trying to break her.” with said “near-stavation diets” being just a few hundred calories a day as penance for making mistakes.
Updated 18th May 2019
Nxivm trial hears of debauchery and cruelty within alleged ‘sex cult’ (theguardian.com).
A top “slave master” in the alleged sex cult Nxivm said in testimony on Friday she herself was sexually and psychologically enslaved by Keith Raniere, the sole defendant in a sex-trafficking trial that has produced a rolling tableau of alleged debauchery and cruelty.
Top “slave master” being “first-line master” slave recruiter Lauren Salzman who said that Raniere was known to followers as “Vanguard” and sometimes “Grandmaster”.
“He was my mentor,” she said. “My teacher. We had a romantic relationship. A physical and sexual relationship.”
Although seemingly punishing her after a 2011 vollyball game when, in his view, she had “straddled” a male player (timesunion.com) after which he called off plans for the two to have a child and over the course of their 17-year relationship involved Grandmaster Raniere taking closeup photographs of her genitalia with fishermans beard he had encouraged her to grow down there, as well as “forcing her into threesomes with other alleged slaves”, including Smallville star Allison Mack.
Updated 20th May 2019
Who was climbing the slaves and masters pyramid herself:
Allison Mack kept sex slave photos for blackmail, ex-NXIVM member testifies (thedailybeast.com).
Lauren Salzman said in Brooklyn federal court Mack, the Smallville actress, was forced to collect the photographs in a Dropbox folder at the request of her master, NXIVM founder Keith Raniere. Salzman began testifying on Friday and continued this week.
“The photo had to be fully frontal naked,” Salzman said. “Our brands had to show, and we had to look uniform and happy.”
Updated 21st May 2019
Nxivm leader Keith Raniere hid in closet to avoid arrest: testimony (nypost.com).
Slave master with romantic aspirations and Gorean gullibility Salzman saying that her not-so-beau made his way to a closet to hide as heavily armed federal police hammered on the door of his Mexican hideout directing her to answer the door and to “ask them if they have a warrant” which presumably if they have he was hoping his divinity could conjurer a tunnel and motorcycle on tracks in the closet El Chapo style.
Frightened by officers who kicked in the door, threw her to the floor and surrounded her with guns drawn, Salzman uttered Raniere’s name—effectively ratting him out.
And seemingly before being busted he was entertaining plans of a “re-commitment” orgy with Salzman, Mack, Canadian Sci-Fi Channel’s Battlestar Galactica series star Nicki Clyne—now married to Mack in 2017 allegedly for immigration purposes (Wikipedia)—and others, with apparently love-struck Salzman explaining in her testemony that she was not so keen:
“My understanding of it is that it’s going to be us pleasuring him,” said Salzman, recalling not wanting to partake in the sex act.
But aware that her place in the cult hierarchy ensured that “I have no way of surrendering except to a group blow job” presumably in a similar way as to which her own slaves had no way of getting out of the commitment ordeals and punishments she had then surrender to.
Updated 23rd May 2019
Judge denies mistrial motion in Nxivm case after stopping cross-examination (nypost.com).
A motion for a mistrial was denied Thursday by a judge who had brought accused Nxivm sex cult leader Keith Raniere’s trial to a screeching halt the day before—when he accused a defense attorney of driving a witness toward a nervous breakdown.
Judge Nicholas Garaufis ordering lawyer Marc Agnifilo to cease his cross-examination of slave-master Salzman saying that “I’m not going to have someone have a nervous breakdown on the witness stand”.
Updated 25th May 2019
And with a presumably less bullied by defense former member’s testimony adding weight to Raniere’s charges of possession of images of two 15-year-old girls (rollingstone.com, Mar. 2019):
Former NXIVM Member: My sisters and I were groomed for sex by Keith Raniere (rollingstone.com).
Said a testifying witness identified only as Daniela who had grown up in Mexico who took a course offered by NXIVM in her hometown of Monterey when she was 16 who relocated to Albany, NY where NXIVM was headquartered only to end up cleaning houses rather than taking computer programming classes for free due to “visa issues” she was told, and with the 40-year-old Raniere flirting with her but saying he would not have sex with her until her 18th birthday, with the proviso that she lose 20 pounds. But despite taking laxatives each day:
When her 18th birthday arrived, he determined that she did not meet his standards for female attractiveness because she had not lost enough weight yet, telling her, “‘Why, do you not care about me? You don’t care enough? You care more about food than to be with me,’’ she testified.
Although eventually doing it on a dirty mattress in an office, or at least attempting it, with her claiming he unable to perform.
Eventually, Daniela said, she discovered that Raniere was having a sexual relationship with her older sister Mariana. One night, he pressured the two of them to engage in group sex with him, during which they both started crying. “It felt dirty. It was bad. It was wrong,” she said.
But with Raniere encouraging her to invite her other siblings—her brother Adian, nicknamed “Fluffy”, and her 15-year-old sister Camila to join them in Albany too, with Camila also “employed” as a maid but also sleeping with Raniere too.
When Daniela confronted Raniere about the fact that he was sleeping with her underage sister, he was nonchalant, simply asking her if she “minded.”
But with Daniella testifying that on top of her concern “I was also feeling kind of jealous”:
“I was thinking, oh, he made me wait until after my 18th birthday and he’s having sex with my sister, you know, now. And it’s all kinds of messed up that I felt that way. And I really wish—I deeply regret that I didn’t at that moment get my sister out of there. But that’s how it happened.”
Next page: Nearing the end of the 3rd week of Raniere’s trial court hears how member branding was scripted like a sacrifice, how a slave who would later become the organisations hacker was confined to her bedroom for two years for gaining weight, and how Allison Mack told a member seducing Rainere would heal her sexual abuse trauma.